My daughter Autumn and her husband Ismael are coming to visit next week which should be fun. Then we pack up and head back to Vermont. Hopefully the weather will cooperate but it seems like warmer weather is in the forecast for the Green Mountains.

Thank you so much for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

_Don, Emily, Hadley & Amy_

_Dear Friends,_

I have become super aware of mosquitos with all the news about the Zika virus. For some reason biting insects just love me whether they are super tiny no-see-ums here in the Keys or slightly larger ones in Vermont they seem to be attracted to me. The first thing that I noticed about the mosquitos down here is that they are tiny compared to the ones that come out every year in Vermont. Seriously though, this Zika virus seems like a very serious health epidemic with the World Health Organization calling it a crisis. They have a pretty serious mosquito control program down here with guys that go door to door to look for standing water and spraying year around.

Apple announced their holiday quarter financials and they beat the estimates on the street and posted the most revenue and profit ever for Apple and in a truly remarkable factoid, the most profit generated in a quarter by any public corporation, EVER. I will talk about the financial results below but let’s just say if Apple has reached a plateau it sure is a lofty one! Just to contrast that a bit against the other guys, Samsung reported a 40% decline in profits. They posted about a $15.8 billion profit for the entire year which Apple crushed in a single three month period!

This week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive features the “**Apple Certified Reconditioned 21 inch iMac**.”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002135/special-apple-certified-reconditioned-21-5in-imac-2-7ghz-w-applecare-for-1099 This iMac is configured with a 2.7GHZ i5 processor 8GB of ram and a 1 TB hard drive. This model has the latest 802.11ac wireless protocol and comes with the same 1 year warranty as new iMacs. We are bundling it with Applecare so instead of a 1 year warranty you get 3 years and instead of 90 day days of free Apple technical support you get 3 years too. Kibbles & Bytes readers can purchase this special bundle for “**$1099!**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002135/special-apple-certified-reconditioned-21-5in-imac-2-7ghz-w-applecare-for-1099 That’s the lowest price ever for a warrantied iMac with Applecare!

By now you’ve probably seen one of those odd-looking white squares with a bunch of smaller square dots that make up a random pattern inside–that’s a QR code. QR stands for “Quick Response,” and a QR code is a form of barcode, just like on the packaging of nearly everything you buy.

Usually QR codes are used to store Web links–URLs–so an ad can display just the QR code instead an unwieldy and hard-to-type web address. But QR codes aren’t just for ads. They’ve appeared on business cards, in magazines and books, on coins and bills, and even on tombstones–any place it would be nice to help someone load a Web link into a smartphone but where there isn’t enough room for a URL or in situations where viewers won’t remember the URL later. And the links? They can display anything that can appear on the Web: text, photos, videos, games, and more.

Only one built-in iPhone app can scan QR codes–the Wallet app in iOS 9–but it can scan only QR codes that are associated with Wallet passes, things like airline boarding passes, concert tickets, and iTunes gift cards. For QR codes that encode any other sort of data, Wallet shows an error. It would be nice if Apple would add general QR scanning capabilities to Wallet or the Camera app, but until that happens, you’ll need another app.
There are numerous QR code scanning apps in the App Store, but if you need a recommendation, give TapMedia’s QR Reader for iPhone a try. It’s free with ads (remove them with a $1.99 in-app purchase), scans both QR codes and traditional barcodes on most commercial products, and displays the associated information within the app. It can even help you create your own QR codes.

To use a QR code scanner, launch the app, allow it to access the camera when it asks, and then point it at the QR code. Good apps will scan nearly instantly, but if not, move the camera so the QR code is centered between the guides. If even that doesn’t work, move forward or back so the camera can focus on the centered code.

Once the code has been scanned, the app will usually bring up an in-app Web browser to display whatever was encoded. For certain kinds of data, like books or grocery items, the app may go right to Amazon or a price comparison site. Good apps will also keep a record of sites you’ve scanned, so you can go back to them later, even if you can no longer scan the QR code.

So download a QR code scanning app and keep an eye out for QR codes. Once you start looking, you’ll find them everywhere–it’s a modern-day treasure hunt!